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A new Liberal leader and a more moderate, built-to-win NDP collide in the race to win the electoral middle in 2015.

Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau offer intriguing contrasts, writes Tim Harper. In a debate, Mulcair would likely savage his younger rival. But when it comes to filling a room and energizing a crowd, Trudeau is miles ahead.
(Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo)

Tom Mulcair and his New Democrats have gone from honeymoon to political crossroads in one short year.

This weekend, two parallel events collide on the evolving Canadian political landscape, signalling the latest sprint to the middle in this country, a three-way mash up that includes the governing Conservatives.

First, Mulcair presides over the party’s initial policy convention under his leadership in Montreal, while down the road in the nation’s capital, Liberals are expected to confirm the official passage of Justin Trudeau from party phenom to party leader.

Mulcair was chosen leader of the New Democrats just over a year ago because he was the man party members believed could take the Jack Layton legacy and move the party from decades of moral victories and clear consciences to a party ready to form a government.

He must — and will — reinforce that image in Montreal, keeping the party’s more traditional wing muted, softly and subtly loosening the NDP umbilical cord to organized labour and keeping the Conservative “fear factor” at bay by embracing that invaluable mushy middle where most Canadians hang their hats.

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The party will keep the policy resolutions to be debated vanilla-flavoured, avoiding the unneeded spice by talking about winding down the Alberta oil sands, or nationalizing U.S. Steel or slapping sanctions on Israel.

The pro-labour resolutions are well within the mainstream.

A vote to soften the reference to socialism in the preamble to the party’s constitution is needed now.

But that is only part of the task at hand for New Democrats.

Trudeau has taken his Liberals off life-support and Mulcair’s biggest problem right now is that Canadians apparently are projecting their own hopes and vision on the, so far, empty canvas of the new leader.

That is a difficult thing to counter, a bit like counterpunching a bowl of Jell-O.

Trudeau has already signalled his line of attack on the NDP leader. In a speech at his party’s leadership showcase he charged that both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mulcair play the same discredited game of divisive politics.

At a meeting with the Star’s editorial board, he said he thought Mulcair had “crossed a line” in badmouthing the Keystone XL pipeline during a visit to Washington.

Anyone who has watched the NDP leader from an Ottawa vantage point in the past year has observed a determined, consistent, tough debater, unafraid of controversy and unbending in his convictions.

But outside the Ottawa bubble, Mulcair appears a little too “hot” while Trudeau has pledged to play a more respectful, constructive style of politics — the same promise Mulcair made a year earlier.

In the political moment we are in today, Mulcair and Trudeau offer intriguing contrasts.

In a debate, Mulcair would likely savage his younger rival.

But when it comes to filling a room and energizing a crowd, Trudeau is miles ahead.

Trudeau has brought more Liberal leadership voters to this week’s exercise than the NDP did to its leadership last year, and polling data for the CBC by Nanos Research shows Mulcair lagging behind Harper and Trudeau in areas such as inspiring voters, leading their parties and sharing values with voters.

And there is no denying the power of image.

New Democrats are about to try to personalize Mulcair, starting with a video at the convention that will introduce his family and show a softer side to their man.

When Trudeau’s spouse, Sophie Grégoire, is front page news for discussing her history of eating disorders, it serves to remind that Mulcair’s spouse, Catherine Pinhas, a Paris-born psychologist with a fascinating biography in her own right, is not even mentioned on the NDP leader’s biography on the party website.

New Democrats can wait for the Trudeau balloon to deflate and, in the short term, it will be difficult for Mulcair to break through the cacophony the final Liberal verdict will set off among reporters and commentators.

The danger of that, of course, is that a sustained Trudeau surge would return Canadian politics to its pre-2011 axis, putting New Democrats back in third place and playing to the suspicion among some that the election result of two years ago was an anomaly.

The challenge for Mulcair now is that he not become the grumpy cousin complaining darkly at the dinner table while Trudeau is the one who dominates the dinner conversation with his sunny, bubbly chatter.

Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. tharper@thestar.ca Twitter:@nutgraf1

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